This year’s edition of “Thanks Bob!”

heidi08 featured, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? August 14, 2016

Bob Rust finally gets the credit he deserves after years of hard work. You won’t find any photos in the article, but of course we have them all.

Eye on the East Bay: ‘Beaver mobile’ turns heads at Martinez festival

IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: Beaver sightings are not all that uncommon along Alhambra Creek in Martinez — especially during the city’s annual Beaver Festival, which took place last weekend — so it takes something larger than life to turn heads. Leave it to Bob Rust to answer the challenge.

Rust, an environmental scientist by trade, has been moonlighting as the festival’s unofficial artist in residence for several years, surprising audiences with his whimsical creations that have ranged from beaver-shaped loaves of bread to a mechanical beaver tail to a giant inflatable beaver reminiscent of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

For this year’s festival, Rust made a grand entrance on what might best be described as a “beaver mobile.” He started with a low-slung adult tricycle that he picked up used, then covered it in a papier mâché shell that he painted in appropriate shades of brown, attaching a huge tail that dragged noisily on the ground as he pedaled around the festival grounds, all while hidden within the faux beaver’s mighty belly.

Rust, who last year crafted a beaver out of wattle and daub as the festival was in progress, is no stranger to taking his creations from concept to completion on short notice. He spent about a week on the beaver mobile, and was still putting the finishing touches on it that Saturday morning. He said he was painting the critter’s white teeth at 10:15 a.m. and needed to get it to the festival by 10:30.

Rust has more than a passing interest in beavers. An avid kayaker, he usually tries to take his boat onto Alhambra Creek prior to festival weekend to remove trash or other unsightly debris.

No telling what he might do for an encore at next year’s festival, but he is intrigued by the idea of bringing back his beaver bread — baked in a beaver-shaped oven. Stay tuned …

The beavers are SO lucky to have a hero like this working for them! Thanks Bob!

Beavers are Groovy

heidi08 Beavers August 13, 2016

Nice conference call yesterday about the big event. Bob Rust is going to be manning his beaver-bike outside the theater. The organic women’s chorus will be singing as people enter, then I’ll present on our neighborhood beavers and Kate will present on beavers in California and then Jari Osborne’s wonderful film will run. It should be a beaver night to remember.

There’s a short write-up about Bob’s beaver-mobile in the Tribune this morning, with an unaccountable photo beside the restrooms and the trash can.

Beaver Fever …

This beavermobile (for lack of a better term) was a hit scooting around at the 9th annual Beaver Festival on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016. The theme of this year’s free festival was “Ecosystem Engineers,” and featured over 40 environmental exhibits, live music, and lots of fun learning activities for people of all ages. For more information on the Martinez beavers, visit MartinezBeavers.org. (JOHN GRUBKA / Courtesy)

But before the beaver mobile can appear for its second performance in Vallejo and before I can fill the big screen with the Martinez Beavers, I have to return to Placer to coax. cajole, badger them into thinking about beaver management differently. I’m restructuring that talk to begin with the news that Placer kills 7 times more beavers than any other county in the state which costs a lot of money and eliminates a lot of fish and wildlife. How’s that for a ‘hook’?

h/t to our friends at the Sierra Wildlife Coalition for this. Heh-heh.

Beavers go to the theater

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, featured, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 13, 2016

A wild and wacky look at one of the most important critters on the continent. We’ll hear why they almost disappeared and how they are making comeback.

Film Screening: Leave it to Beavers

Presentations by:

Kate Lundquist
Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D
Worth A Dam/Martinezbeavers.org

Music by Organic Women’s Chorus

Empress Theatre, 330 Virginia Street, Vallejo, CA

Friday, September 16, 7pm – 10:00 pm

Happy you-know-what to you-know-who.

Inching forward

heidi08 Beavers August 11, 2016

Who wants to go camping? Four days after the beaver festival and we’re down to a mere 8 items remaining to get to their owners and finish up the auction. And no one could be happier than I, believe you me.

Besides it’s getting to be time to buckle down and ready myself for the NEXT Placer foray, this one to the Board of Supervisors. Good news/Bad news report: I found out yesterday I get 25% less time. Bummer. The aide that told me also noted “I heard that Placer really kills more beavers than anywhere in the state. I can believe it!”

My reputation proceeds me, obviously. Good. Spend some time thinking about your reputation as the deadliest beaver county and the least able to use tools to solve problems. Shame is a great motivator. And the more people that think about this the more people I might be able to get to try something new.

In the mean time folks at home need something pretty to look at.

All in a days work!

heidi08 Beavers August 10, 2016

582.00 in outstanding auction items have now been collected by folks who won their bids but didn’t collect that day. We have two more today, two to mail, one on thursday and two on friday and then we’re done. DONE. Hurray!

Just in time for the Beaver Mania event conference call on friday and Jon’s very much anticipated birthday! He deserves a day of treats and rewards don’t you think because he worked so hard for the festival. Aside from hauling, moving, and nailing down everything, his tours were very well attended and broadly appreciated.

I finally went through most of Cheryl’s photos from the day, and thought I’d share a little about our awesome exhibitors this year. Ann Riley wrote appreciatively

” I am impressed that you got seemingly all the urban environmental-wildlife groups in one place. Don’t know of another event like that. So congrats on a class act.”

which coming from the author of this newly published work I will take as high praise indeed! Here are a few of our many wonderful exhibitors and what they had to offer for the day.

Lots to see and do that’s for sure! I’m just happy I got my computer desktop cleared off of all the details and contracts I wasn’t supposed to forget or needed to keep handy. Now they’re all in a neat folder marked festival 2016 and I get to see my beautiful screen saver again. Bob Armstrong’s wonderful Mendenhall beaver dam. Breathe!

mendenhall — Mendenhall Glacier Beaver Dam: Bob Armstrong

Oh and a beaver has now attacked not one but TWO people in a prophetically named town called Killingly in CT. It is all over the news but the story is pretty much the same. Swimming, dog, kits, beaver, rabies, you know the drill. And a prosthetic leg was found in the beaver dam, which is old news in Martinez where it has happened at least twice already.